Quote from: DaRude on Today at 03:02:31 AM

Quote from: OgNasty on March 28, 2022, 09:20:21 PM

...they’re [Russia] coming off a bit like the United States as we invaded Iraq for imaginary weapons.

Yeah pretty much. Only Iraq didn't share a land boarder with US (wasn't even on a same continent), had different religion, didn't have 30% of population with English as their native language, didn't have regions where majority of population were Americans, and then official Russian attache didn't come out with their RuskiBear cookies during a coup where American leaning leader was removed, after which ultimately laws weren't passed that banned English books (when 60% of them were in English), English folklore heroes , and didn't de-Americanize Iraq toponymy implied also the removal from railways and airports of any information board written in English, and didn't put in language quotas against English etc etc etc... You know totally non discriminatory laws squeezing out English that people didn't know they needed before. But of course, coincidences, semantics, and they took Crimea.

So even without all that how did it turn out for Iraq? Non friendly regime changed, brought ISIS to the world, kept Saudis as a regional powerhouse, wiped out it's OPEC competitor, ensuring sale of weapons for billions of dollars to Saudis for decades, all while suffering no consequences or long term condemnations. Only 103,160–113,728 civilian died but now US gets to use that money and petrodollar on soft power, to offer preferential treatments and cookies to regimes it wants changed. That sweet soft power ensures US control of the media, so its population can be triggered and start condemning others nations that attempt to do even a small portion of the damage that US did. Pretty amazing gig, benefits of being on the top, until you go too far and someones cost of reputation becomes less than the benefits of doing same thing (oh and they have a hypersonic nuke so you can't really just bomb them into submission). Or are you an exception and made posts condemning all other more brutal conflicts that were beneficial to US?

Quote from: paxmao on March 29, 2022, 09:51:07 AM

...
I think that the first thing you need to stay competitive is having a country. If you are feeding a bear, he will bite you, so competitiveness at the cost of an existential threat is out of anyone's table. Before this war, I was already quite surprised of how close Germany was getting to Russia, but I thought they had really good reasons or leverage that I just was not in the know. Apparently, they did not.

Commodities and resources markets are usually quite "perfect" in the theoretical sense - products from Russia are no cheaper, they are just market price and easy to transport and, mid to long term, replaceable. A question we should be asking ourselves is why Putin is willing to sell to "unfriendly" countries as well. Seems that he cannot do without either? I am not sure that EU will accept paying in rubles. It may be the case of a pissing contest coming.

Just to put in context: Germany pays for the gas and funds Putin's war and then Putin send the gas to feed the industry that eventually produces the weapons that will kill the Russian young soldiers. Seems like everyone wins. Well, almost.

On regards to Germany "helping" the South Europe... Germany only helps Germany. Anything from them comes with strong strings attached.

Long term countries and markets adjust to newer circumstances and, as said, while Putin remains in power Russia is an unreliable partner, does not abide by any international law and cannot be assumed to honour commercial contracts.

Don't believe anyone thinks that Germany is under any existential threat, in fact it was doing pretty good pre 2014 coup and still sitting pretty good. Countries do what's most beneficial for them, a bit less so when they're in a pact. Doubt Germany thinks that US is doing them a lot of favors now, and after Brexit there's a huge pressure from UK & US on EU to sabotage its industrial complex. US & UK don't depend on Russian gas so what do they care.
“America has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests” - Henry Kissinger
What options does EU have, they are a declining energy importer, and will be even more so now. US won't redirect much of its output from lucrative contracts from South and Latin America (that just opens a door for Russia to come in). Doesn't make much sense to invest and increase deliveries into declining market for middle east either, to just loose their share in growing markets (India, China) to Russia. There's a reason why EU didn't sanction oil/gas.

But products from Russia are cheaper, if EU was able to obtain cheaper gas/oil surely they would've already done that. Can't do much about geography. There was a complex balance that seemed to work enough for both sides, when one sides decided to take something, it has to give up something somewhere else. Can't only have wins in international trades. What will really boggle your mind is who's transferring Russian gas to EU receiving payments from Russia for it.

The EU is run by a bunch of Transatlantic Woke Tards, they have no idea what they are doing and will let anyone except russia do damage as much as they want in the EU